Part-time faculty members strongly believe that institutional employment policies and practices are h l o p e d for the primary benefit of the employer and contribute significantly to the job-related stress they experience.
The Stress-Producing Working Conditions of Part-Time Faculty
Judith M . Gappa Nearly a third of all faculty members teaching in American colleges and universities today do so on a part-time basis (Gappa, 1984a). They engage in 28 percent of all undergraduate instruction and 21 percent of all graduate-level work (Leslie and others, 1982). The majority of American students will be taught by part-time faculty members at some point during their college education. Thus, status, job satisfaction, and especially the teaching performance of part-time faculty members are matters of great concern to everyone who worries about quality in higher education.
Despite their growing numbers and importance, part-time faculty members are employed under institutional policies and practices that do not take into account the differences among them and tend to reinforce their perception that they are academe's second-class citizens. Part-time faculty members find themselves in a two-tid system in which the preeminence of tenured faculty members influences most aspects of their working conditions. For many, this situation causes destructive work-related stress.
The part-time faculty members who experience this stress most acutely are those who have the requisite credentials in their academic disciplines and are hopeful of attaining tenure-track status. However, other 33 P. Seldin (ed). Coping with Fonrlly Shes. Ncw Diredionr far T d n g and LBming. no. 29. San Franduo. ]--Bas, Spins 1937.